The darkness shall fall
by ThemyThink
Summary: When Talion won the fight against the black hand he took the force of orks he had with him and retreated to Núrn to dominate more of the orcs there and restore the enslaved tribesmen to the warriors they were a short while ago, before their defeat. What if the nation he created still lives at the end of the war of the rings and gondor discovers evidence of their excistense?
1. Chapter 1

The darkness shall fall

TA 2591

"The time has come for a new ring" said Talion as he turned around to the orcs that he had posessed with the help of celebrimbor.

"man the gates you worthless orcs. let none that dont bear the mark of me enter or exit this forsaken land!" yelled Talion

"Are you sure this is wise? we dont have enough uruks here to hold the gate if the enemy comes knocking." said celebrimbor as he appeared out of thin air, looking thoughtful." We could retreat back to the shores of Núrn, consolidate our position there in the fortress of Barad Nurn. There are ample supplies there with what we could support our growing army. We have the trust of the local resistance and you controll all the local warlords."

"Yes but it would be harder for us to take back the black gate if the enemy is fully aware of our existence and that we have a big amount of forces under our controll." retorted talion, defending his position.

"yes but we could starve mordor into submission if we held the shores of Núrn, they wouldnt have enough food to feed their armies and that would lead them into a desperate attack, an attack like that would draw away enough uruks from the coming war effort. We could buy time for the rest of Middle Earth to prepare for the war." Celebrimbor stayed sure of himself.

"all right, well do it your way" surrendered Talion "but if we die again, i am going to destroy a pack of Ghûls and their matron by draining their minds." Was Talions last argument

Talion torned around defeatedly sighing and started yelling at his orcs. " okay uruks, change of plans, we are going to strip the gate of any and all supplies and we are going back to barad Núrn!" Talion yelled so that all his orcs could hear him, then he sat down, took out the dwarven whetstone he found earlier and started sharpening his sword.

hours passed and so it was nightfall before Talion was finally happy with his gear. He stood up and asked "how far have the orcs gotten?"

"The orcs are only a few hours journey away from Barad Núrn, why did you stay behind and didnt go with them?" asked celebrimbor as he appeared behind Talion and walked infront of him." If we want to build up your troops you need to brand uruks one by one or brand their commanders."

"Yes, i know that, remeber what i said about forging a new ring?" Talion could see that he had attracted the intrest of his partner. " Well, i had an idea that we could forge a new ring of power, one that would serve us, and not Sauron." Talion looked at celebrimbor pleadingly." So please tell my that my assumptions are correct, that we can create a ring that would give os power to combat Sauron, even if he regains his ring of power."

"You do not understand what it takes to forge a ring with that kind of power, it takes great evil and malevolence or raw power to make a ring of power, I as a spirit cannot command that amount of power anymore." Celebrimbor admitted sadly, " I cannot give you the power you seek anymore, but i can make you minor rings that have some of the abilities of the other rings. I could make you a ring that turns you invisible to the naked eye, for a short duration of course, a ring with what you could controll the workings of the very nature around you at a very limited scale. All the other types of powers my rings could give you are either not needed or you have the same attribute in spades."

"I could use a ring that turns me invisible, it would be easyer to sneak up on orc captains and warchiefs to brand them. But where will we get the materials, tools and workplaces?" Asked Talion as he started to think the idea more thoroughly trough.

"Correct, if i was still in the smithies of eregion i could do it, but that would require mithril anvils and all the other tools would have to be made of mithril. So no, we cannot make other rings of power, we just have to make do what we have and what we can steal from Sauron."

The two of them had been talking like that for a while and made it to a campsite that was populated by a few uruks. "Well ill let you get to work" said Celebrimbor as he dissapeared.

FA 11

Aragorn was enjoiying a quiet walk with his wife, Arwen , in the garden of kings in Minas Tirith when a messenger wearing the colors of the pircedom of Minas Ithil."I wonder what Faramir wants of me today, is it another reqest of troops to defend his borders from orcs that dont know when to quit fighting, or are the easterlings at it again?" mused Aragorn

"Lets wait and see, he will answer your question in due time my love" said Arwen as she looked at her husband lovingly.

"My liege, I bear urgent news from the men assingned at the black gate" said the messenger after kneeling down before his king.

" Is there trouble brewing there? I thought i had assigned 4 batallions to clear up the area around the black gate?" asked Aragorn, starting to make battle plans to make sure that his and his princedoms borders were safe.

"No, nothing like that." Stammered the messenger because he could see that the king was getting a bit angry.

"Then what is it? Is Faramir asking for men to take all of mordor back to gondor or something like that?" asked Aragorn as he placed his fingers on his temples in order to calm himself.

"Not excacly, some of our patrols captured and interrogated a local warchief and discovered that when sauron took over mordor from the then crumbling Gondor in TA 2951 he was not able to destroy the tribesmen of Núrn. We discovered that the army that you destroyed under the black gate was less that 1/6 of the enemies total army in Mordor. The rest is either guarding and working the surviving industry or... is sieging the tribesmen of Núrn and their so called traitorous orc armies. The tribesmen are being led by a so called gravewalker, a gondorian ranger. Prince faramir wants to use Gondors navy to take as many men we can pull from irrelevant posts and ship them through the river of Poros to the other side of the mountains of shadow. Then they would go to investigate if there really is a remmnant of local gondorian troops." explained the messenger to his king and queen

Both the queen and king stared at eachother, having a silent debate. Finally they seemed to reach a consensus after staring at eachother for atleast half an hour, the messenger was still kneeling infront of the pair, waiting their reply.

"Tell prince Faramir that we agree to provide him with some men and the fleet, and tell him that this is under his full responsability, if the expedition fails it will put him into an extremely bad position in the court and that he will lose alot of the support gondor and Dol Amroth are providing go" said Aragorn as he turned away and lead his wife into their royal bedroom, both requiring some relaxation after making a desiseon that could result in thousainds of men dying.

AN.

this is my second story at (the first i had to take down because i just lost my motivation at the amount of flames i got) and i just had to write it when i had completed Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor. I just had such an urge to write about it, please dont flame me too much or i might loose motivation to write this, updates will be sporradical


	2. Chapter 2

The darkness must fall ch 2

FA 11

City of Ithillien

In a peacefull human city that still showed some signs of the evil that had taken residence in there just scant years before, there was a marvelous hall, filled with pillars and in the center of witch stood a long table with gilded chairs all around it. Prince of Ithillien, Faramir was having quite an annoying talk with his advisor, he wanted him to use the troops he got from Aragorn and prince Imrahil and have a quick war with the Easterlings and black Numenorians of Umbar. They thought that the information the men at the black gate had gained was just false information, leaked by the enemy to lessen the Gondor conefederacys (A.N gondor has multible princedoms that are under its call, so I took the liberty to call them a confederation, if this bothers enough people i can modify it) manpower at the borders. The men had to be pulled from somewhere and Gondor had a big power of manpower because the war of the rings had ended just 11 years ago and they lacked the volounteers and conscripts to refill the ranks of soldiers they had had when the kings last ruled Gondor.

"I am telling you, if you send those soldiers there you will never see them again and they would be wasted, I know and understand your willingness to find remnants of Gondor in the middle of Mordor but this is definetly a trap." Yelled an old obese man in a gilded chair fit for royalty, " I will not stand for this Faramir, when this expedition fails i will make sure it is your head that rolls, and that someone worthy of your position, someone like me would take it!" as he finished his rant he weakly rose up from his chair and paddled out of the council room.

"Do not fret my liege, the expedition will not fail. Hailmo is not stupid enough to sabotage the expeditionary force that we are sending into mordor. He knows that it would be a total waste of men and resources along with what could come if the whole thing is a success." Said Andromir, Faramirs most trusted commander and cousin from his mothers side.

"He is only doing what he thinks is best." was the short reply of prince Faramir, who was sitting on his throne scratching the beard that Eowyn wanted hin to grow," he just doesnt realise the boost that finding this so called kingdom of Nurn would give us. Give him time and he will accept my decision. I just hope he wont do anything stupid until the understanding dawns on him." Understanding that the subject was over and done with, Andromir opened up another one.

"Have the messengers we sent to Umbar to negotiate a peace treaty returned?" asked Andromir sounding conserned.

Faramir just shook his head."No word from them, i am starting to get worried about them. The escort I provided them should have been good enough to protect them from any bandits, orc remmnant forces or any easterling raid groups that still populate the old Gondor highway." as he finished his sentence, one of his personal guards entered from the door and said," sir, the messengers have returned." The man bowed infront of his prince and moved next to one of the pillars in the hall, waiting for Faramir to get going so that he could escort him to the emissaries.

faramir stood up, sighed and said to himself: "no rest for the brave, eh." then he started walking. The guard moved so that he was next to Faramir, sword and shield ready incase of any assassins that could be lurking around.

They marched through the palace, met a few people, exchanged some pleasantries but made it to the gate in less than 10 minutes.

Faramir turned around the last corner before the main gate and took in what he saw, the piles of produce was normal, the stables full of fine rorrhirric horses was normal the cortyard was full of people coming to trade, children playing and adults just chatting. There was a group of horses in the middle of the courtyard with armoured men on the horses, their armour bore the symbol of the white tree. `so few returned, wonder what has happened`.

The men dismounted their horses and started walking towards Faramir with an old grizzled man in their fron, atleast he looked old. Those that knew the guy knew that his name was Polothir, one of the few men that were at the battle of the black gate and survived. He had taken part of many campaings, having taken part at the first, second and third battle of Osgiliath, was one of the fiew that survived at the first level of minas Tirith after the gates had been breached. He and his squad had blocked a courtyard along with the remmnants of his company, as he was the most experienced of the survivors he took up command and set up the defences of the courtyard of the stand, as it is now called, for hours. Because they were not in the enemys way they were mostly left alone, not counting the plundering orc groups that they had to defend themselves against. All in all he was an experienced soldier and commander, second only to Andromir because he was more of a behind the lines tactitian with a gift for seeing enemy strategies and how to counteract them.

"Sir, the diplomatic escort reporting in, sir" called out Polothir as he stood in a gondorian salute, straight backed and a hand on the place where his heart is.

"Where are the diplomatic team and the rest of your soldiers?" Asked Faramir as he answered his captains salute.

Polothir immediattelly looked sad as he answered his prince."The negotiations went sour. the diplomatic team entered the city of Umbar but all that came out were theyr heads that a team of serpent guards brought us, we attacked the betrayers and thats how i lost some of my men. Those damn serpents were well trained."

Faramir started swearing because a piece of his plan just fell off. But no matter he was going to modify the plan so that it could still go on."Damnit, I suppose there is nothing for it now, the waters of Umbar still remain inacessible for us. That means we will have to be more carefull with the troop transports."

AN. I try to update every sunday but like it sometimes happens, life got in the way of that, so ill publish this now.


	3. Chapter 3

The Darkness Shall Fall ch 3

A/N: just to alert you guys, this is just the edited version of the chapter, the ending didnt feel right to me

River of Anduin 15 miles out of Osgiliath

It was a calm day with sun shining, no clouds in sight. That made it an oppurtune day to launch the fleet of transports and escorts. Over 100 troop carrier ships that also carried the supplies necessarry along with 45 escort ships. The water was calm because it was the slow delta of the Anduin. The ships had been launched an hour ago and were making good time towards the western sea where they would sail towards the south till they get to the first major river and then oar upriver on the Thanathor (I dont remember the real name for the river that flows through southern Gondor) river. After they reached the mountains of Mordor they would take the supplies and move trough the naerwith (again made up for storys sake) pass that would lead them to the straight plains that would be several weeks of travel away from Nurn. The sailors had orders to let the men go and then make their way towards their home ports. The soldiers were to accomplish their mission and send a runner through the black gate to Gondor. The road would be easier to cut through by a single light rider.

Command transport "Arcanir"

center of the gondorian convoy fleet

"Arthemir, Fasthemir, get up the mast and signal the rest of the fleet that we are soon going to be exiting the Anduin delta, move it"shouted the decorated admiral of the fleet as he came out of his cabin and buckled up his finely decorated marine armour and took his spear from the doorway to his cabin.

He walked up the stairs to the msailor that was manning the steering wheel and asked him "Everything quiet the last couple of hours? Or were there any problems i should know about?"

The sailor snapped himself fully awake as he was droning off when the admiral came up, "no sir, the most that happened was when a couple of the soldiers we are transporting fell off their transport and had to be fished out before their armour killed them."

"Excelent, only minimal problems then. So no pirate scouts sighted. Good, good, that means we might get through with this withour getting raided." The admiral sighed and made his way to behind the man behind the steering wheel. "son, how old are you? You look barely out of your teens."

The sailor jumped a little of nervousness and answered quickly " 21 sum-mm-mers...sir" the sailor crossed his fingers and hoped the admiral bought it.

The admiral shook his head and stated caringly "you look no more than 16, hell you could even be 15 summers old, but thats not my point. How long have you been at sea and how long have you been behind the steer?" the admiral stood up and placed his hand on the young sailors shoulder "its not that i look down on you because you signed up in the navy and lied to the recruiters about your age, that took guts and a leader needs guts. Especcially at times like these. But if you have little to no experience steering a ship then i will take over and i will send you to your bunk."

The sailor looked a bit relieved and answered the captain in a polite tone "I am 17 years old and i have served three years at sea. Two as a regular sailor and one year as a steerers help."

The old admiral looked surprised and looked at the young man again, "you handle yourself well behind the wheel, dont get us killed and i might teach you some tricks of the trade, as i too started as a sailor." The admiral then walked back to the main deck.

Three weeks later at Brallenuva village near the Thanathor river

The village had not seen any human activity for over 250 years, still the stone structures of the men of Gondor still stood, that made the place perfect for an outpost for the men that were offloaded from the ships. they needed to regroup and they needed some safety for that.

The commander that was leading the group of 1000 soldiers from witch 200 were archers divided his men into two batallions and as they consisted of 10 companies of 100 men each. The companies were going to march in a convoy formation. The supply animals and people servicing the army were at the center and the soldiers were surrounding them. The commanders of armies had long since learned to keep theyr supplies defended as the main force that was guarding south Gondor got cut off from Gondor and killed because the harads launched a surprise attack and burned their supplies.

the men were marching on an old highway, nobody knew who had built it for sure or why but some thought it was an old trading highway between the dwarves of the Broadbeam clan who once had a settelment near here and the elves of Mordor. That would explain the condition of the highway, It was missing only a small percentage of the huge slabs of stone and only a few of them were showing cracks. Most of them had only got a layer of moss on them in places but that was it, no real damage.

The soldiers were marching in formation and the commander leading them was getting nervous, he didnt like mountain passes especially one as unexplored by gondorians as this one. he didnt like it one bit, he had almost zero intel and a very finite amount of men, a situation he was used to. But marching into mordor like this was not a smart idea. The enemy knew the terrain well, they still had alot of soldiers and were breeding more although their main breederies were taken out by the assault force that attacked the black gate and then plundered the surrounding area. Sauron never planned on getting defeated at the black gate so he hadnt built his breederies far from it so he could continnuously pump out troops and drown the west under his orcs and uruks.

Everyone on the outer layers of the formation were carefully looking around, they knew if push came to shove they would be the first to die so they wanted to have as much time as possible to prepare for an enemy charge. The men were nervous for a reason, many a times gondorian troops patrolling the outer edges of gondors territory had been annihalated because they were caught unawares in a valley or canyon.

The troopers marched all day and made camp for the night. Commander Polothir looked around the camp, the troops had camped in a medium sized valley that ended in a dead end. There was a small lake in the middle of the valley that was fed by some small streams coming from the mountains. Polothir had set up his main defences, built from the trees from chopping down the trees that inhabited their camp site earlier, at the mouth of the valleyin a thick wall and some light defences along the side facing their valley. The camp was big enough to house the 1000 soldiers and the people that took care of the small army along with supplie carts and the mounts of the small cavalry group.

He saw a couple of his men behind a barrel and a game of poker(the dice variant) and what looked to be wine. He started walking towards them and when he was just 5 meters from the players one of them saw him and called out "Oy, is that you Polothir you old bastard? Havent seen you since Tirith in 19`". The man was a tall soldier with the regular gondor infantry armor a longbor on his back along with two swords on his hips. The mans name was Drogomir, he was a tad bit crazy. In a good way ofcourse, if it werent he wouldnt be near any weapons, no he hated orcs, and not just regular hatred but enough to throw himself reclessly intoa mass of orcs and fight with his fists when they broke his blades. That was the last Polothir saw of him when they last met, he thought the man was dead and even mourned him for his bravery witch allowed him and the other troopers to get some civillians they were escorting into safety.

"I see you survived that raiding party i last saw you brawling with. I aint even surprised, there were not enough orcs to take down a man as crazy as you. I almost feel sorry for them." stated Polothir as he was trying to recover from the elation of knowing the soldier he had thought dead and whose death he had been blaming himself for was actually alive. "Who are the men you are playing dice with?" asked polothir as he was trying hard not to break out smiling.

"Oh you think those guys had a chance of beating me? Im insulted sarge. oh wait you are a commander now eh?" The man blinked his blue eyes and pushed his longer than regulation hair out of the way of his sight "By the way boys, I need to see the barber so take the old bastard of a commander we have here in my place." Drogomir stood up and started walking towards the camp, probably to get a haircut and so that he wouldnt have to pay out the money he would have lost in a dice throw in a couple of rounds.

"Well i do have to show the younger guys how it was back in our day when we were bored." Said Polothir as he saw Drogomir walking away.


	4. Chapter 4

The darkness shall fall ch 4

A few hours after the game with the soldiers Polothir got back to his command tent with his body more relaxed and his purse a bit heavier. He walked past the two honour guards who were guarding the command tent and saw one of his junior commanders there measuring the map and taking down notes.

"What are you doing here son, shouldnt you be with your men and be resting?" Asked Polothir while keeping his hand on the pommel of his sword. Too many of his fellow commanders had been killed by infiltrators to make this unreasonable so the junior officer took no offence.

The officer saluted his commanding officer and motioned him over, Polothir complied and went to the opposite side of the table."Sir, I am sorry but i took the liberty to dispatch one of my men to scout up ahead the path and they discovered something strange, he found a collumn of dead orcs."

"Weird, i have gotten any reports of any of my forward recon ranger units reporting of taking down an orc caravan in the area, they returned hours ago." Stated Polothir as he looked at the spot the other man was pointing at. "Although if i were to choose an ambush location i would take that spot for sure. See that bend in the valley, perfect for rows of archers to shoot down the first rows, and if the foliage stays the same as it has been the whole trip, then rangers could start quickly picking off the orcs from the back without the others infront of them noticing as they would be concertrated on the frontal attack." Polothir instantly started thinking about cenarios, what could could have attacked the orcs and left them in caravan formation, the foliage is thick but not thick enough to hide enough men to take down an entire caravan. That would leave special forces, sharpshooters that made every arrow count and be synced with eachother to achieve a slaughter as `clean` as that. Polothir quickly stepped out of his tent and said to one of the guards " alert the guards to be extra careful, we have unknown secial operations rangers in the area, and double the guard at all sides."

The guard nodded his consent and ran in the direction of the gates. Polothir returned to his tent and motioned the officer to return to his unit. Polothir layed down on the cot that was in his command thent, the quartermaster wanted to requisition him a proper bed but Polöothir turned it down saying that he was a field commander and that using a bed would make him soft and would not be to the liking of his men.

He drifted off to sleep, luckily a dreamless one because he had no mood for nightmares. Yet as he woke up he thought at first that he was having a nightmare, his tent looked a bit beaten up and he saw his personal guards body slumped in the tent entrance, and fire, a fire was burning in the camp. Polothir immediatelly grabbed his sword, shield and bow with his fathers quiver and ran out of his tent, all the while thanking the valar that he slept in his armour as the first thing he got after exiting his tent was an arrow to the chest where the thickest part of his armour was, he thanked his forefathers in his mind for having the tradition to use the armour of ancient Gondor, before the time that the stewards decreased the density of the standard armour. But still the arrow kicked like a mule and almost knocked him down, he retained his balance and saw what hit him, it was dead, the killer was another orc with its knife in the other orcs back, not a regular one, its eyes were blue and they were glowing. The orc sneered, and ran. Polothir didnt have time to think as his shield took a direct hit from an orc crossbow and caused him to blot towards where there were sounds of fighting, if there was one thing that could pierce his armour it was a crossbow. he ran into a dozen of his men who were having trouble defendinga tent, polothir understood why they were defending it when an orc ran past them with a torch and threw itself into the tent. A huge explosion followed that ripped apart his men, the orc that ran into the tent and some of the attacking orcs. Polothir was knocked down and was buried under some orc corpses. He dug himself ot of the corpses and ran further into the camp all the while slicing up the orcs that he came across, everywhere were corpses of men and orcs, the orcs had a majority of the corpses but he knew that he couldnt take as many casualties as the orcs could, even from his current position he could see the swarm that was climbing over the main wall. He kept running and finally came across another group of his soldiers, there were few of them, too few, but it was all he had, the men numbred 37 in number and were mostly light infantry with some archers and heavy infantry mixed in. "Sir, youre alive, i thought you were lost with the initial assault." the highest officer of the group, a sergeant spoke and looked relaxed, 'must be the stress' thought Polothir and started shouting orders "okay lets get into formation, heavys up front , lighties in the flanks and archers in the middle. Arrow formation!" The men started moving and were in formation within seconds. "Okay, lets move it and help our brothers." He motioned forward to the worst of the fighting and started running in front of his men, a couple of orcs tried to stop him but they were all cut down by either arrows or Polothirs blade.

_***CRASH***_

The men ran into the orcs backs and trampled over many of them with their momentum. Immeadiatelly the wedge mostly broke apart as the soldiers went into singel combat with the orcs who still had their backs turned. Polothir had fought through the main line of orcs and almost got decapitated by one of his own men who was holding the line, or what was left of the line anyway. The only thing that was stopping him was the orcish arrow that suddenly appeared in his face and downed the young looked where the arrows came from and saw a dozen orcs who were firing arrows into the ranks of the men, Polothir pushed his sword into the gut of an orc that was running past him, took the orcs scimitar and threw it into the face of another one who was about to finish off one of his men who was down on the ground. He then took off towards the archers, they were the biggest threat to his men at that moment, he threw his shield into another orcs face and picked up a sword from one of his dead soldiers and immediatelly buried it in the throat of an orc, drew it out and got even more black blood on his armour and face. He thwirled around and used his dual swords to their maximum effect, their sharp blades slicing through four orcs and never getting stuck on their bones, he was like a whirlwind in the orcs rank, taking out orc after orc, dealing death to the monsters, his men gaining hope that they may yet survive the night. And suddenly there was a loud roar and a big creature busted itself through the main gate, stomping on orcs and regulally taking a bite out of one aswell. Polothir had studied his ancient scrolls and knew that that was a graug. Only its eyes were glowing and it was leaving the men unharmed and killed the orcs in drowes.

The only thing Polothir could think at that moment was 'What. The. Fuck'.


	5. Chapter 5

ch 5

Authors note:

Yea i know its been a while, i just have been lazy as fuck and busy with school. On with the story now.

Pearadise: I appreciate the review but im atleast trying, I am trying to make something and as my first creation i expect it to be sub-par to most of the people writing on this site but i gotta start somewhere so could you please atleast review with an account so i could have a mature discussion with you and learn your reasons why you think this story sucks.

FictionGuy-20: Thanks for the review and a good discussion

Leseratte14: Thanks for the review and as i will point out in the authors note i have english as a B language and i really dont know how to get a beta so if someone would volounteer for it id appreciate it.

: Thats way later into the story but they will meet, i think, havent planned too far yet.

The morning after the battle polothir was working along with his me, they needed all the hands they could get on clearing out rubble and looking for more resourses that they could use to trudge on, going back was not an option. Polothir started walking towards where he remembered his tent was, giving a helping hand to some of the men he saw struggling with their tasks on the way. He had less than two hundred men left and most of them were medium infantry, only about two dozen rangers and a dozen archers had survived the battle. The attack on them was largely surrounded in mystery. Nobody knew how the orcs had gotten in that easily. The guards at the walls should have raised the alarm long before the orcs got into the camp. polothir kept moving on, he climbed over the body of the graug that had pretty much turned the battle from a rout to victory, although a phyrric one. The graug had caused enough confusion in the orc ranks that Polothir and his surviving officers managed to reorganize the troops and even burst a couple of pockets where his men were surrounded. After the graug went down something really weird happened, orcs turned on eachother. The ones that started stabbing others in the back were killed of pretty fast but not before taking down even more of the orcs. That confusion in the enemies ranks gave Polothir the chance to push the orcs out of the fort and hold the gate till the morning when the orcs retreated.

Polothir finally made it to his tent and looked his bodyguards dead bodies with sorrow, both of the men had families and this assignment was suppose to be their last on the frontlines, they were suppose to be diverted towards the border of Rohan for regular patrol duty. polothir shook his head and walked into his tent that was by some miracle still standing, he picked up the map of the area off the table, drew his spare swords and took his bagof supplies he always kept packed.

returning from the tent he signaled a couple of the nearby soldiers to him

"Okay, Tarkir, Galveir. See those two men on the ground," he pointed at his bodyguards." I want you two to take their armour and weapons and put them on. They will offer you more protection, i cant afford to lose any more men." He turned his back to the two men as they started undressing the two soldiers. even if its true that he cant afford to lose any more men he did not like plundering the dead, especially his own. He moved on to what was his expeditions food supply of lembas, dried fruit and dried meat, the orcs were so repulsed by the lembas that they just threw a torch in the storage tents and let them burn, now his men were on a mostly lembas diet because lembas is sturdy and doesnt burn easily. The human dried meat and fruit was mostly ruined and all the supplies he had of those were directed towards the wounded who needed the vitamins and energy, mind you, lembas was good but nothing beats meat on helping men who had almost bled out replenish their blood and the fruits kept the injured healthy so that they wouldnt contract a disease because their bodies were too busy dealing with the it was lembas for the uninjured and the ones that didnt suffer anything major. He then remembered why he had went into his old tent in the first place and headed towards the new command tent.

Polothir walked into the new command tent to see his officers and make up a plan. He stepped in and immediatelly all the assembled officers rose up. He had lost a lot of officers but the core of his command was mostly there. He had lieutenant Drogomir, Major Salzimir, lieutenant Halpir, and sargeant Tindir. All of them were experienced and two of them had served with Polothir before, those were Drogomir and Halpir. Both in the Minas Tirith campaing.

polothir put the map on the table and motioned for everyone to take a seat.

"So, Tindir, how is it going with finding survivors from the parts near the gate?" asked Polothir as his opening question.

Tindir sighed and gave his report "Not too good, we found a couple of men who were knocked out or hiding but we only got a dozen or so. Most of them are too shaken to fight anytime soon. Cant say i can blame em'."

Polothir just shook his head. "Me neither, but they need to be in a fighting condition soon or they wont survive, Drogomir, hows the armoury?"

"The orcs werent interested in the armoury so everything but the blasting powder is fully accounted, most of the stuff was blown up in the fire, i think. So armaments are ready and waiting for troops to use them, I doubt we will find much use of empty suits of armour and weapons without men to wield them." Drogomir sighted, none of them could deny how bleak their situation looked.

"My scouts who scouted the area over said they found some dry caves behind some thick bushes, hide most of the spare weapons and armour there, we might have a use for them someday. Halpir, how many trailers do we have left?"

Halpir was the only one who had a positive report it seemed, the people trailing the army, the adventurers, families, whores and servicers didnt suffer too many casualties because they were behind the Gondorian troops when they fought so not many orcs got through.

"well, atleast we have some good news, send a messenger to them and ask how many would like to bolster our troop numbers temporarely, tell them they can keep the weapons and armour we give them. Silzir how are we on supplies?"

A guard left the tent to act as a runner as Silzir started his raport " We have enough food to last until the next summer if we ration the food reasonably. We also have..." '**BOOM**'

Polothir along with every other officer struggled to keep their balance as the ground shook.

Drogomir was the first one to get on his feet and rushed outside. Then came a couple seconds of silence that was cut off by Drogomir "Commander, i think you need to see this."

Polothir walked out with his other officers and saw that the entrance to the small valley they were in was covered by huge rocks

Before he could get a word off a ranger ran towards him, stopped, saluted and gave a raport "Sir, we saw some goblins on the higher spots of the mountain, they were working on something, when we started to shoot them one of them dropped something and then the explosion happened, mustve dragged down half the mountain." The man finished his raport, grabbed his knees and hyperventilated from the running.

Polothir took in a deep breath and answered the ranger "You did good soldier, if that hadnt happened they would probably have toppled the mountain ontop of us when we would leave. Hey Drogomir, i think i know what happened to your missing blasting powder."

**AN:**

**Anyways expect slow updates, or fast ones, dont know when some random thing inspires me to write again. Like today i was walking my dog when i suddenly thought 'hey, i should write a bit tonight'. So still reviews would be appreciated and PMs even more. As im sure i havent told you guys before, my first language is not english, hell my keyboard is russian, but thats because i bought the piece of crap from russia on a school trip.**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN**: Yes yes, its been a while. But hey, atleast i write, or try to write from time to time. Im an asshole, I know I know.

disclaimer: I only own the original caracters and the plotline (havent completely figured that out yet) all else is the property of their respective owners.

CH6:

A week had gone by since the orcs blocked their exit, most of the wounded had either died or recovered enough to move, the camp had been cleared out and supplies counted. The idea of essentially getting free armour and weapons was tantalizing to many men and they had bolstered their ranks quite a bit, although not enough, he still had a severely understaffed unit of witch many were now rookies with no basic training. Polothir had been stressed with more work as alot of his command staff had died and he tried to help the normal footsoldiers with everyday tasks when he could. And when he had free time he spent time with Drogomir

Luckily some of the bored rangers had taken to looking through the caves, because they didnt want to work, and had found that there was a draft going through the cave, that meant that there was another exit. Since then all the rangers had been released from normal duties and were issued map drawing equipment to make a map of the caves.

Polothir was looking through his maps, for the millionth time since they got trapped, trying to compare the latest maps of the caves with the map of the area, trying to determine where an exit could be and what was the direction his men should prefer heading towards.

He heard a commotion outside of his tent flaps and turned to one of his guards and nodded towards him, the soldier drew his sword, picked up his shield and walked out of the tent. A minute passed with some mumbling on the other side with more people joining in on the conversation, finally Polothir had enough, "What in the blazes are you talking about out there, if its important, enter, if its not, leave. Its as easy as that." All went quiet outside and after a couple of seconds the guard he had sent out returned with a ranger in tow, Polothir recognized the soldier as one of the forward scouts that were in the eastern tunnels.

He immediatelly drew a conclusion that the soldier was trying to sneak past his duties "Whats the meaning of this soldier, you are suppose to be in the tunnels looking for a way out, not in the camp lollygagging." The soldier looked at him bewildedly, shook his head and handed him a piece of parchment that had drawings on it.

"Sir, I returned to bring news that we found a way out, it is a small cave entrance that is covered in thick vines, we need axes to break through, i was told by my commanding officer to requisition them and bring some strong men to the caves." The soldier snapped off a salute and stretched his hand out in expectance of the requisition note.

Polothir looked surprised for a second, he knew there was a way out but didnt expect his scouts to find it so quickly, but composed himself and scribbled some words on a piece of parchment and handed it to the waiting ranger and nodded, effectivly dismissing the scout.

Polothir rose up and took a half full glass of red wine from his table and drank the whole glass. 'Why is it always the wine that runs out first'

He put the glass back on his desk and walked outside his tent. If you looked at the camp now the only thing that would say that there had been a battle recently was the still smoking pile of orcs that was as far from the camp as possible and the blocked entrance to the valley.

He started walking calmly towards one of his officers "Halpir, i need you to spread the word, we are leaving this valley, get the rookies packing up supplies and tents and have first company start martching into the tunnels. Here, take this map and give it to them." Halpir looked bewildered for a second, then shoved the map into his poutch, nodded and ran towards a cluster of tents where first company was during their downtime.

Polothir thought of their casualties, how a unit of 10 companies could be trimmed down to 3 and a little bit to spare was eye opening. It said quite clearly that it doesnt matter how many men you have, let down your guard or get arrogant and you could lose it all. Only 200 men of his 300 were trained soldiers first company was composed fully of veterans while second and third was split down the middle with rookies and veterans.

Polothir walked back into his tent, packed his stuff and helped his bodyguards take down his personal tent. As he was helping his men he saw that the camp looked like someone had stomped on an anthill because there was alot of people running around, packing supplies and taking down tents.

Soon the men and women were starting to move into the caves. First company had sent back a runner that reported that the rangers had broken through the vines with their help and had secured the exit. Now all they had to do was follow the path marked on the map and make it out of the caves. After a couple of hours of walking down the tunnels they had to stop because the lead cart of the supply convoy had lost one of its wheels and it had to be replaced. while his underling were working Polothir and his guard force were at the head of the convoy and were milling about when one of the soldiers under his command put his hand on the wall he was leaning against. His hand activated a pressure plate that was hidden under moss and made the wall he was leaning against to slide open like a door and causing the man to fall through the doorway and down what sounded like a long set of stairs.

The whole unit was shocked, they were all looking at the opening like it had eaten one of them, whitch it had. They were all so shocked that until a painfull groan game through the doorway none of them dared to move. Polothir immediatelly started shouting orders to his unit. "Ramir, Lomeromir, follow me, the rest of you, guard this entrance."

The guards that were named picked up their torches and went through the doorway and Polothir followed them. The light of the torches revealed a staircase that looked old, ancient even, it had a thick layer of dust on it and was clean only in places that the soldier that took the fast way down had fallen on. 'atleast the dust must have softened some of the tumble' thought Polothir as he and his two men went down the ancient stairs, being careful not to take a misstep and tumble downstairs.

Ramir was the first to open his mouth, witch wasnt unusual since he was the most talkative man in the unit and Lomeromir was his polar oposite in that department, speaking only if needed.

"Damn, this place looks older than my grandmother, and shes ancient. Hey captain, am i the only one that sees the runes carved on the walls?"

Polothir had not been paying attention to the walls so when he took his eyes off the stairs and looked closely, he could see some faded runes and pictures depicting what looked to be dwarves in a forge, hammering away on a piece of metal. 'Must be dwarven runes then' was his first thought as he cleaned a picture using his hand.

Polothir looked at Ramir and satarted giving him instructions "Ramir, do you know the blacksmith that traveled with us from dwarf. Whats his name, Flan or something like that. Anyway, get him down here and tell him to try and decipher these runes, we have a limited amount of time before we need to move on and I would like to know what this place is."

"Yes sir, I know him his name is Floi. He made me my custom armour before we left port. Ill go get him." With those words Ramir took off up the stairs in full sprint, leaving Lomeromir and Polothir to continue down the stairs.

Along the way they saw multible beautiful pieces of supposedly dwarwen carvings, a couple of pieces of gondorian armour that had fallen off the tumbling soldier. What felt like hours later but was actually ten or so minutes they finally made it down the stairs. What they found infront of them was an unconsious soldier and a big spider towering over the soldier.  
For Polothir it felt like time had slowed down to a crawl. The spider had its stinger out, ready to inject venom into his soldier. He saw Lomeromir was going for his sword but Polothir knew that he couldnt get it out in time. So he rushed the beast, putting his shield infront of him to cover his body, he collided with the beast. The spider was so shocked about the sudden attack that he couldnt do anything and was just frozen as Polothir used the edge of his shield to separate two of his legs from his body. That snapped the spider out of it as it started to use its mandibles to grab onto Polothirs shield and throw it away from him. Then it registere d for the creature that it didnt have two legs on one side anymore so it should be more careful on where to put its balance, so the spider fell down onto its face and that had bought Lomeromir enough time to draw his sword, step close to the beast and bury his sword into its face. The spider died and stopped twitching.

Polothir immediatelly drew his sword in preparation of another spider attack but he didnt see any more spiders in the room with them. That didnt mean he would let down his guard, oh no. He went to each of the three exits to the grand hall he was in and looked for any more spiders. Luckily he saw none and as he returned to Lomeromir and Purtzir, the guy who fell down the stairs he saw that the only major thing that was wrong with him was that his face was a bit bloody. Somehow the kid hadnt broken his neck, taking the express route down and was mostly ok. Only unconseous but that could be easyly fixed. Meanwhile Lomeromir was applying some salve on the wounds and bandaging them.

Lomeromir and Polothir quickly patched Purtzir up and were ready to leave when Polothir saw something moving in the corner of his eye. He immediatly reacted by pushing his men away from him and jumping. Too little too late. The spider that was lurking in the shadows had jumped and had pulled Polothir away with him. Polothir landed with an audible cruntch in the corner of the room, the spider not far behind. As luck would have it Polothirs belt had descided to break off its master and was lying next to Lomeromir and Purtzir. The spider was on Polothir. one of his gaunleted hands was in the beasts face, trying to stop it from biting his head off and the other was trying to find a rock, or anything sharp on the ground whitch he could use to kill the eight legged bastard.

Just as the spider had decided to smarten up and use its forelegs to impale him his hand found something, a hilt, he didnt care if it was a sword or something else. The only thing he cared about was killing that damn spider. He dodged a mandible and using that movement grasped the hilt of the improvised weapon and with a swing decapitated the spider, cutting off its front legs in the process.

The spider fell ontop of Polothir, who was energized by the sudden shot of adrenaline that the attack had caused, he pushed the spider off of him and for the first time studied the blade that had saved his life. The blade was black, a deep all consuming black. But it did not feel evil, on the contrary, it felt for a lack of a better term, perfect. The handguard looked like it was made of silver and the grip looked like normal iron(Type into google 'Carracks Black Sword' and look at the third image in the second row, thats the basic design of the sword, the grip is like Narsils) but merely by toutching it Polothir understood that it was no mere iron.

Runes were etched onto the blade, they did not look like the dwarven runes that they saw coming down the stairs, nor the smooth elvish runes nor the sloppy and cruel runes of the black speetch. They looked like a combination of the elvish and dwarven runes, having the sharp corners of the dwarvish runes but having somehow retained the beautiful flowing nature of elvish runes.

Polothir shook his head.´Now is not the time to try and decipher writimgs that are upon a sword´. And indeed, by the screetching sounds that were coming from one of the doorways leading out of the chamber, they had about 20 secondsa until more giant spiders were upon them. Polothir quickly ran over to Lomeromir who had just stood up and was helping Purtzir up. They placed one of Purtzirs hands on Lomeromirs shoulder and one on Polothirs shoulder and they started dragging the unconsious man up the stairs. It was no easy task, considering Putzir was in full armour nad they had to drag him and stay ahead of the giant spiders that were chasing them. A minute later the spiders were nipping their heels. Polothir ducked under Purtzirs arm leaving the man for Lomeromir to carry and lifted his new sword. The first spider was impaled instantly. Polothir pulled out his sword and hacked off a couple of legs that were trying to get over their comrade. Suddenly one of the spiders jumped over the dead corpse and Polothir impaled it with his new sword, dropping it because more spiders were jumping over the corpse of their now dead comrade. Polothir dashed towards the coming opposition, hoping to seal off the tunnel with the spiders own corpses. He reached for his sheathed sword and only then realised that his sword was still in the chamber where his belt fell with the tussle with the spider. It was too late to slow down, so he rammed shoulder first into the first spider in his way, knocking it back and giving him time to grab the two spider legs that were on the ground. He threw one into the face of the first spider and when the second one jumped over the corpse he jammed the second one into its mouth as it was in the air. Polothir turned around as fast as possible and ran to the corpse holding his sword. He pulled the sword out and ran up the stairs. hoping that the two spiders stacked ontop of eachother would be enough to hold the rest of the horde at bay.

He had never ran that fast in his life. he dashed up the stairs. And when he reached his retreating soldiers he once again helped carry Purtzir. When they reached Ramir and the dwarf Floi they were sweating like they had just done a marathon, for all intents and purposes, they had. Carrying someone wearing full body armour and having the same armour yourself and running full tilt up the stairs is not something people do for fun.

"Ah captain, I see you have returned with the soldier that discovered this magnificent archive of my peoples history. Why are you running?" The dwarf looked both jovial and confused. Jovial over finding something so signifficant to his people and confused at why the men where running. Floi was a dwarf in the end of his second century of life, that means he was not as brash as he was a couple decades ago. He had dark brown hair, bordering on black and a huge beard, as was the tradition of his people. He was from the blacklock clan. A decade ago he had decided to go to gondor, and when he saw how much they needed blacksmiths, he had staye, and worked for the men, for a high pice, of cource. He had signed his name on the list of departurers after a rather rowdy night in one of the osgiliath Taverns, the tavern had got a new shipment of dwarven ale and he had, for the first time in a human realm, gotten drunk. But if a dwarf signed something, even if drunk, he would carry through with it, so he reported to the docks with his smithy packed up and joined the expedition.

Lomeromirs was tired, he had never made a dash like that, and because he was tired, he slipped. He dropped Purtzir because Polothir could not adjust to him being the only one carrying Purtzir. They bent over to pick him back up and heard the spiders coming closer.

"RUN. RUN YOU FOOLS" was all Polothir could yell before the spiders came into view from the darkness of the stairs.

Floi and Ramir immediatelly started running while Lomeromirs and Polothir started to lift up Purtzir. They had just gotten the man up when disaster struck. There was a sound of metal breaking and flesh beeing torn apart, then a scream. A terrifying scream of agony. Polothir turned around and saw Lomeromirs grasping at his stomach, where a spiders leg had gotten stuck at. Lomeromirs´ face went from agony to surprise, then it turned into rage. Lomeromirs drew his sword and turned around, snapping the leg from the joint. He started hacking at the spiders like a madman yelling profanities and challenges at the spiders. Polothir allready knew how it was going to end, his bodyguard was dead, he knew it, Polothir knew it and the spiders knew it. But he was going to die fighting.

Polothir turned around and picked Purtzir back up and started sprinting towards the doorway that was now in sight.

He ran through the doorway and immediatelly dumped the unconsious man he was carrying to the ground and started closing the door. His bodyguards who had been milling about started to help him without asking questions. Within seconds the door was as much closed as they could manage on a door that swings inside when opened.

Polothir immediatelly leaned against a wall and slid down. He found that he was still tightly gripping the sword that he had found in the tunnel.

TBC

A/N: Okay so to compensate for the longer away time i made this chapter a bit longer than the others. Anyway, if you would be so kind, leave a review, a PM, anything really. if someone could volounteer as a beta and explain to me how that system works then that would be just dandy. Anyway ill try to get another update out faster than this one but no promises.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A/N: So im feeling inspired by silmanfans review and although its half past midnight, i will try to make a chapter.

A/N nr2: So i felt unhappy with the ending of the chapter and having some ideas bounced around with Flair the demon helped me with the new ending.

Polothir felt like a graug had decided to use him as a club. His whole body hurt, from multible adrenaline shots, being slammed into walls and having run up a very long set of stairs. He opened his eyes and saw that he was inside his tent.' Good, that means we have stopped'. He tried to call a guard over but the only sound he managed to get out was a low gurgle. After multible attemts he gave up trying to attract any attention and laid back. 'Ilúvatar knows i have skipped enough rack time, guess its just karma getting back at me' was his last consious thought before slipping into the land of dreams.

He didnt notice that the blade he had found in the underground hall was laid against his bedside. The blade almost semed alive, it looked like something was moving beneath the surface until Polothir accidentally moved his hand in his sleep and toutched it, the blade calmed down immediatelly.

It was weird, it felt like waking up, but it didnt either. His movements had a dreamy feel, as if he wasnt completely controlling them. He heard voices, some mere whispers, some loud yells. A couple of them sounded like battle cries while some sounded like men and women crying out in pleasure. As soon as he started walking towards a direction the voices were coming from, the voices either stopped for a second or moved direction entirely. Finally after what seemed like hours wandering in the mist he could finally see a siluette. As he approached the figure became more clear, He could see a figure with black armour and silver accents. The armour at some points looked horrifying, pictures of slaughters and acts that should not be spoken of were depicted on the armour, while there were beautiful pictures on the silver parts of the armour.

**"YOU DARE AWAKEN US!" **The voice that the armoured figure had was deep and booming. Had he been anyone else, or superstitious. He would have paniced, but because he understood that he was dreaming he was not as concerned. 'Must be some weird ass dream, cant wait to wake up'.

**"FOR FIVE MILLENNIA WE HAVE BEEN AT PEACE, YOU DARE AWAKEN ME." **The owner of the voice seemed neither male nor female, atleast judging from the voice. The voice was sinister, promising pain.

Polothir was determined to not let the sinister feeling deter him, so he squared his elbows puffed his chest and tried to look as intimidating as possible. It would have been effective had he not suddenly noticed that he was naked. Polothir tried to look as dignified as a man can possibly be while naked and in a situation that could escalate into a fight.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my dream?" Polothir rapidly shot off the questions. It was clear to him then that he was in a dream, for none of his men dressed or talked like that and getting passed his guards would wake him for sure.

The figure looked at him like he was wondering wether the naked man before him was a simpleton, uneducated or just plain dumb. **"HOW AMUSING, YOU MORTAL ARE A GOOD ACTOR; I WILL GIVE YOU THAT. NOW BOW BEFORE ME. **

Polothir was shocked by this... this madman. "How dare you ask a soldier of Gondor to bow before you. I dont even know your name and i will never bow to something that is as vile as you, I would rather die." By the end of his small tirade he was ready to use his bare fists to beat the other to death, he got into a fighting position and was ready to be on the receiving end of an attack. The armoured figures reaction was entirely unexpected. The bastard was laughing, again like a madman.

**"HAHAHAHAHAHA, YOU THINK YOU HAVE A CHANCE AGAINST ME, COME THEN, I'LL GIVE YOU A FREE SHOT AT ME." **the figure came closer and lifted its visor up, Polothir could not make out any discerning features other than the figure was an elf, its skin was translucent and he could see the ghosts, because what else could it be, hair was long, that gave nothing away on its gender because elves were known to have long hair on both their males and females.

Polothir, not one to miss a free shot at his oponent lifted his fist and hit the thing right in the face. What shocked him was that his fist went right through its face and he hit the back of the helmet. He quicklty pulled back his hand and pulled back to a safe distance where he could effectively dodge incoming attacks.

The elven ghost snapped into action and before Polothir could even lift his guard to block the first attack he was allready being hit from another direction, He took a hit to his side and stomach and then got hit in the face. The kick to the face was so strong that he was sent flying into the mist. When Polothir flew in the air he found himself praying to the Ilúvatar to make his landing a soft one, and lo and behold, he didnt even feel his impact with the ground. Polothir quickly got up and charged the patch of black he could see in the mist. He was almost upon the ghost when he saw that the figure had drawn a sword, the sword was the same as the one he had found in the cave. The figure looked surprised of his charge and was unprepared when Polothir hit it shoulder first. There was a loud crack as Polothirs shoulder broke of the charge. The figure was not expecting the charge and was unbalanced, the result was that the figure found itself tumbling down towards the ground, dropping the sword by accident. Polothir saw the sword lying on the ground and the ghost thing starting to get up. He jumped, and prayed he could make it to the sword. The sword was suddenly in his hand and he went into a roll to break his fall. He got up and swung the sword. The first swing took off the figures helmet. As Polothir was preparing for the second swing he saw that the figure had raised its hands and had started chuckling.

"Never would have imagined i would be bested by a mortal. You have spirit, ill give you that too. Now would you put that sword away before you hurt somebody, I yield."

Now that Polothir could actually examine the ghost thing infront of him he saw that it was a she elf. Polothir did not lower the sword one inch. He knew the speed of elves first hand, and understood that if he kept the sword ready he had a chance of hitting the she elf if she decided to attack him.

The elf, seeing that the man was not going to lower his sword only laughed, but the laugh was not the sinister laugh that sounded, it was melodious. But as beautiful as it was he was still not going to lower his guard.

"I see you are not stupid, nor as arrogant as I had believed you to be on first glance. No matter, you have my allegiance." The elf had a smirk on her face as she said those words. There was a flash and Polothir fell. Next thing he knew, he was waking up, all his muscles that were aching were like he had never made that run, they were rested and felt stronger than ever.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the open sky. He pushed himself up and looked around, he was in a wagon in the middle of a collumn of men. Some had iron armor on, while others had simple plate reinforced hardened leather armour. Those men, no _his_ men were martching in a slow pace toward a gap in the long valley they were in.

Suddenly one of his men that was walking beside the cart noticed that he had woken.

"The commander is awake, everyone, hes awake." The young man, for he could be no older than 17 summers old, started yelling. Immediatelly everyone in hearing distance perked up and looked more alive. The collumn stopped and everyone tried rushing him to even toutch him. Someone yelled from the crowd "STOP. stop before you trample all over him." The owner of the voice pushed himself through the crowd and revealed himself to be noone else than Drogomir.

"Glad to see you back up old man, the boys were getting afraid you wouldnt wake again." Drogomir had a smirk on his face. he knew something he didnt. Polothir had seen that face too many times on his friends face to not know the meaning of it.

"What did you do? I know that face." Polothir was not in the mood for one of Drogomirs pranks. They were usually fun but only when they were not played on him and seeing those eyes full of mirth told him that he was the target of the pranksters latest prank.

Drogomir could hold out no longer and blurted out "Maybe you should put some clothes on before you leave the vagon, eh?" those words said it all, he had probably paid off the healer lady to undress him before placing him in the cart, Looking around Polothir could see half of his men were holding back laughs and the others were openly laughing. He even saw some of the girls in his expedition giggle of seeing him in his full glory.

He let them have their little laugh but soon he had to break it up. "Okay shows over men, lets keep moving. And could someone fetch me my armour and clothes. Oh, Drogomir, you and your boys have midnight watch for the next two weeks."

The smirk that was on Drogomirs face fell off and some of the men that were surrounding him glared at him.

The column started moving and within the hour they were on the valley edge. They looked over the plains of mordor and saw that the stories of the halflings of Mordor being a barren wasteland were exaggerations. It was not lush or teeming with life but still there was a layer of grass covering the soil. The grass may be yellowish but it was still grass and it was growing. As they were looking over the landskape they also saw what looked to be a ruined castle on a nearby hill. the castle was smoking and the ground was black around it.

Polothir ordered his troops to investigate and was soon there with two dozen of his riders.

When they reached the battlefield, for a battlefield it was, they saw alot of dead orcs, some burnt siege equipment. The ground was black with dead orcs but it was clear whitch side had won. The castle was breached in many places and there were piles of men dead in those breaches in a futile attempt to hold the line against the sieging orcs. But it seemed as if the orcs were in such low numbers after winning the fight they couldnt occupy the castle and couldn´t devour the corpses of both man and orc to feed their bellies.

Polothir marched inside through the broken gate and saw a slaughterground. There were layers upon layers of dead orcs and men, united in their resting place. But it seemed as if his initial assumption was incorrect. The gate to the inner courtyard was sealed shut. He signaled one of his men to step forward and try to catch the attention of the gatekeeper or whoever passed as one in here.

The man was halfway down from his horse when he got hit by an arrow. It hit him right in the back and he dropped loke a sack of potatoes. Suddenly all around them arrows were whistling by, hitting his men and horses. In seconds a third of his men were dead, dying or trapped under their horses.

Polothir saw orcs emerging from the piles of dead around his unit, throwing spears and shooting crossbows, while the spears had almost no effect as they just bounced off the armour or slid along the surface of it. But the crossbows took a much heavyer toll on his forces than the spears, penetrating shields, armour and flesh.

While he had lost a third of his men they now had an oppurtunity, the crossbows took long to reload and if they charged now they could catch the enemy off guard. The only problem being that the orcs were disperced and a single charge would not break them.

"Charge" he yelled. And although his men were taken aback by the sudden ambush they cuikly steadied themselves and charged the orcs nearest to the gates, hoping to break out of the circle of death. They charged, with some of them going down due to the spears being thrown at them hitting their horses. When they reached the enemy the orcs started to turn around and run, even evil things knew fear when faced with annihalation. They were cut down fast and the riders turned towards the gates. Only to see a big orc rip the chains apart.

"I am Orgul troll kin, and none of you will escape this place alive." The orc on a closer look appeared strange, having paler skin than the rest of his kin and actually wearing some decent armour. The armour had thorns on its gauntlets and sported shoulder guards that looked suspiciosly like smashed together human plate mail chestpieces. more specifically gondorian chestpieces, one of them still having a faded white tree on it with a fiery eye painted over it. The orc had a huge nose that resembled a potato and bulging eyes that looked like they were ready to pop out of their eyesocets any moment. To make him look even more repulsive the orc had small ears that were in tatters and a small mouth.

One of Polothirs men immediatelly charged the bastard, running at the orc with a loud battlecry and making long strides. The man raised his sword while the orc only grinned as he raised his hand that had no armour, save for gauntlets. ...And blocked the strike, there was a noise akin to a sword hitting stone and the standard issue sword broke to shards. While the soldier had a dumbfounded look on his face while staring at the broken sword in his hands, having only the handguard and a couple of inches of the blade attached to the hilt.

"Pafetic" The orc yelled aloud and kicked the man into the stomach, where the armour was the thinnest. The thorns on the orcs gauntlets tore open the thin standard issue armour and bit into the flesh beneath. Luckily the thorns were not long enough to pierce the organs under the skin and instead of having his organs ruptured, like a hit with a sword would have, he was launched in the air and flew a dozen feet backwards before landing in a heap.

Polothir looked around the area and saw the fallen down parts of the wall were now blocked off by barricades made of stakes and a couple of orcs. 'Where did they get those from' was the main thought in his head as he saw the last of the orcs reload and point their crossbows at his men. 'Well this is a shit way to die, being surrounded and cut off.'


End file.
